i want to get a drobo

[vshah]

all my essential stuff has been backed up every time, but i'm sick and tired of losing mp3 and media collections over and over.

the drobo looks like it would do what i need (secure external backup). does anyone have experience with one? are there alternatives that are cheaper for the same functionality?


my apologies, i know this is kind of an open ended question


Thanks,
Vivan

 

[Blain]

3 HDs in a year? :roll:
Maybe you should be examining the rest of your setup a bit closer.

Go ahead and toss up a list of your specs and we'll pick it apart for you.
The Drobo does have good marketing.

 

[RebateMonger]

You might also take a look at Windows Home Server, which manages hard drives similarly to Drobo. Pre-built WHS boxes from HP (EX478) are around the same price as Drobo's.

WHS' built-in backup/restore capabilities are extensive for those using MS Windows computers. FULL image-based backups of up to ten PCs are made daily. You can restore any of those ten PCs quickly and easily. WHS manages the backups so you can restore from many dates, varying from yesterday to months ago. You can restore a single file, a single volume, or an entire PC.

I haven't used a Drobo, but looking over the manual, it seems that Drobo doesn't actually do backups of PCs. It appears to be a storage device only, with built-in redudancy and disk management. WHS does both storage and backup, plus several other features like web site hosting, remote PC access, and media serving to various home media devices.

You can also build your own WHS server, which, depending on your choice of hardware, starts at $100 for the WHS software itself. Pretty much any existing six-year-old PC can be turned into a WHS with the addition of one or more big hard drives and a DVD reader for loading WHS the first time. If you choose to build your own, WHS can also re-use old hard drives of any type with a suitable drive controller.

Whatever your decision on backups, congrats on deciding to do something about them. Losing your data to a hard drive failure is so '90s.

 

[edtsui]

I have a Drobo. I think it's fantastic for what it is, a brain dead easy solution for storing data in a redundant way that doesn't require tinkering. It does take the fun out of setting up RAID arrays if you enjoy that stuff but after dealing with things like that at work you sort of just want something stupid easy to use at home even if it costs a few bucks more.

It doesn't get easier than shove hard drive in and watch array expand.

 

[pjkenned]

I would second the WHS idea now, and this is after testing FreeNAS and Openfiler fairly extensively.

One other thought is that you buy a cheap Adaptec Raid controller and just Raid 5 or 6 a set of dedicated backup drives. Still, WHS is much better than release and is great for automating back-ups easily. The remote access is super also, although I do wish there was better integration with hardware raid and more functionality available via the web browser. Also, a major issue I've seen is that my Blackberry Bold's browser doesn't work to well in fetching files off the WHS :-( Still its a GREAT setup and it's $100 for the WHS license which includes the backup client software also.

If you really wanted, there are Pre-built WHS boxes from HP. You can buy the low end and install hard drives. I think the HP WHS incarnation allows OSX backups which is nice if you need that feature.

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: Blain
3 HDs in a year? :roll:
Maybe you should be examining the rest of your setup a bit closer.

Go ahead and toss up a list of your specs and we'll pick it apart for you.
The Drobo does have good marketing.

its a crappy 5yo computer:
P4 3.0Ghz,
2GB ddr
6800GT
asus P4C800 deluxe (intel 875P)


its not so much anything to do with the computer, its that whenever a hdd died, i would wipe another one that i already had and use that as my boot drive. all my hard drives are ~4-6 years old at this point. since the one died a few days ago, i've decided to finally get a new comp + backup/storage solution. something i should have done a LONG time ago.

windows home server looks interesting. thanks for the suggestion! i am however considering the 1st gen drobo, which you can get for around 300-350 now.

 

[Blain]

Heat and crappy power are the enemies of HDs.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: vshah
windows home server looks interesting. thanks for the suggestion! i am however considering the 1st gen drobo, which you can get for around 300-350 now.

I haven't seen it, but someone told me that the 1st gen HP WHS servers (EX475) are still findable for about the same price. I know they were on sale for that much a couple of months ago during the closeout sales.

 

[vshah]

cheapest i can find the ex475 now is ~425 w/ 1tb...hmm

 

[pjkenned]

Another option is to use spares or your current PC as a WHS box and build something new

I ended up doing the BYO server route not really for cost savings (it didn't) but rather because I could have a 4U case, and whatever cool feature I wanted. Also, if you wanted to tinker or use something like iSCSI, you could try OpenFiler. That isn't such a bad option and is really closer to something you get with a pre-built non-WHS NAS. There's even a VMWare ESX download if you wanted the box to do multiple things.

 

[vshah]

all i really want is a safer method of storage for my media. does WHS allow you to dynamically upgrade hard drives/mix&match drive sizes like drobo does? drobo seems to make it really easy to upgrade storage as you need it...

 

[taltamir]

anyone has a link to a drobo? what is it?

 

[imported_Avengence]

I store all of my stuff on an old PC in my closet that has 3 hard drives in it. I run all my MP3s over my network too. Doesnt really slow it down at all ever, even when I burn stuff.

Never heard of drobo before, always looking for new toys

 

[taltamir]

oh, i store all my stuff in a raidz2 (raid6) zfs array on a home build fileserver... 5x750GB drives in a regular box, run it over a gigabit lan using a cat5e wire and a gigE switch.

 

[pjkenned]

&match

Originally posted by: vshah
all i really want is a safer method of storage for my media. does WHS allow you to dynamically upgrade hard drives/mix drive sizes like drobo does? drobo seems to make it really easy to upgrade storage as you need it...

Yes, WHS is pretty much at the plug-n-play drive ease of use level. The caveat is that if you want an extra HW raid layer, you will want to set that up in the raid controller bios on boot. This is for example if you had a set of 3x 1TB drives and another set of 5x 500TB drives and I wanted to raid on the controller in Raid 5, then have WHS manage the two resultant 2TB disks, you could do that. Alternatively, you could just insert the drives and do without the raid 5 at the controller level. Microsoft did a fairly good job making this simple to do from an expansion and mix-n-match perspective.

Also, WHS lets you be very flexible with hardware. Internal/External SATA, Internal/External SAS, Pre-raided configurations, legacy IDE/SCSI drives all work like a regular PC. You can stick them in whatever enclosures you want. For example, I just decided to move to more trayless enclosures, so I installed 2x 5-in-3's.

I think the QNAP/ReadyNAS/Drobo packages are great too though. The reason I went WHS versus the QNAP box was that for 8+ drives the QNAP platform was an expensive duplication of my spare parts bin.

Also, another big factor for me was the fact that I can add a CD/DVD or even a Blu-Ray player and take all of my previously optically backed up stuff and load it directly on the server. That's a really great feature that the QNAP couldn't do. I don't do any of the illegal filesharing stuff so having the best bit-torrent client possible was not high on the priority list for me, although I'm sure there is a WHS add-on for it.

 

[taltamir]

for BEST quality and reliability use an open source PURE SOFTWARE raid.. FreeNAS is a good example of a SIMPLE one to setup... the absolute BEST is opensolaris with ZFS raidz/z2 (raid5/6 like implementations, only better), but the cavet is that its rather difficult to do.

 

[whistleclient]

Originally posted by: taltamir
anyone has a link to a drobo? what is it?

here you go.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: vshah
does WHS allow you to dynamically upgrade hard drives/mix&match drive sizes like drobo does? drobo seems to make it really easy to upgrade storage as you need it...

Yes, WHS expands the same way as Drobo. You click on a newly-added hard drive and it adds it to the storage pool.

The technology allows a very large storage pool (I've heard of 10 TB pools). If you use your own case (rather than a pre-built WHS server), you can add as many drives as your case and drive controllers can handle. USB, FireWire, and eSATA drives can be added, too.

all i really want is a safer method of storage for my media.

I'm glad you said "safer method", and not "safe method". No storage system is perfect. There are always compromises between security, safety, and cost.

One decision you have to make is whether you want a backup system or a live storage system or both. WHS can do both.

But, like all live storage systems, as soon as you put your ONLY copy of a file on that storage system, you need to think about how you will back it up. Even RAID-like systems (Drobo or WHS) are subject are still subject to data loss from a variety of causes. Backups, preferably off-site backups, are the best way to insure against data loss. Only you can decide how much risk is acceptable.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

DON'T GET A DROBO!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
DON'T GET A DROBO!!!!!!!!!!

But their marketing is so good?!?!?!?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: vshah
all my hard drives are ~4-6 years old at this point.

I think I may have found the problem for your hard drives dying lately...

'Grats on deciding to get a new computer plus a backup solution. A cheap/easy backup is just an external drive that you copy your important stuff to once a while. The key is "having a backup." What does it really matter how it is backed up, be it Drobo, WHS, etc. Everyone has their favorites and there are plusses/minuses, but having a backup at all is a GoodThing?.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: vshah
all my hard drives are ~4-6 years old at this point.

I think I may have found the problem for your hard drives dying lately...

Yeah, while hard drives can fail at any time, like all mechanical things they suffer a "wear-out" stage where the failure rate begins to climb. It's like getting more flat tires as the tires get old and thin.

 

[taltamir]

delete

 

[Jumpem]

The problem with these solutions is they don't provide against two important scenarios: house fire and theft.

You should consider keeping another external drive offsite somewhere, such as a bank safe deposit box.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
The problem with these solutions is they don't provide against two important scenarios: house fire and theft.

You should consider keeping another external drive offsite somewhere, such as a bank safe deposit box.

That works for many businesses. It's harder for homeowners.

An alternative for many is to use online backups for the data that can't be lost under any circumstances. The stuff that would have a significant impact on your life if lost. Mozy offers free backups of 2 GB or less and both Mozy and Carbonite are around $60 a year now for "unlimited" backups.